If there was a coach anywhere who might have known what was is in La Russa's head and heart, it would be Jim Calhoun. If there is a college basketball equivalent to going from 10 ½ games out to winning it all, UConn did it last year and Calhoun, now 69, is two years older.

That's where the roads fork. La Russa is going out on top, Calhoun, though he did not make it clear he was returning until early September, is back for a 26th season at UConn, determined to get to the top again.

Calhoun, a three-time cancer survivor, has no reason to continue coaching, except that he enjoys it. He has won 855 games and three national championships, more than all but a handful of coaches in college history, and he has been in the Hall of Fame since 2005. "I don't think necessarily I have a job unfinished," he says.

"The word I use for him is relentless," says George Blaney, longtime friend and UConn assistant. "He is relentless in his desire to make a team better, to get it to the next level, and then another level, and then another level."

Says junior Alex Oriakhi: "He still brings a certain energy. For a 69-year-old man, he can still be intimidating to some guys on the team."

The last three years have not been easy. There was an NCAA investigation into the Nate Miles recruitment in 2009 that resulted in penalties for the program and a three-game suspension Calhoun must fulfill this season. Calhoun missed several weeks of the 2009-2010 season because of health issues, and the team settled for an NIT bid. When Kemba Walker did what he did and the Huskies did what they did last March and April, Calhoun revealed much when he said, "I needed this team."

"Watching last year's team would rejuvenate anybody," Calhoun said after a November practice. "The key thing all the time, we were coaching basketball. We weren't worried about problems."

Paul Pendergast, UConn's interim athletic director, says, "Jim is a teacher, and the team last season allowed him to teach in a way that was just a perfect storm."

The months since the victory over Butler have not been quiet. A new president, Susan Herbst, has taken over at UConn and one of her early moves was to have the athletic department reviewed, resulting in the departure of athletic director Jeff Hathaway, with whom Calhoun had a frosty relationship. UConn's Academic Progress Rate last May was 893, well below par and the reason for more publicity. The goal of building a new basketball training facility is still unreached.

Herbst made it clear she wanted Calhoun to remain, and his older friends had no doubt that he would, especially since he was working as hard as ever at recruiting.

Said Oriakhi: "I kind of [had doubts], because I figured, who wouldn't want to go out on top like that? I was hearing things, that he might, he might not. Then another part of me said, I know one thing, he's going to go until he can't go any more."

Events kept evolving. Andre Drummond, a prized recruit, committed to UConn on Aug. 26, raising expectations for this season. A scholarship had to be freed, however, and Michael Bradley agreed to give his up and apply for financial aid.

Even in the weeks since Calhoun told Herbst he was staying, new NCAA academic standards, approved in October, could bar UConn from the NCAA Tournament in 2013. And the conference that Calhoun has conquered many times, the Big East, began falling apart. Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia have left. Boston College, which left for the ACC in 2004, made it clear it worked to keep UConn from joining the ACC.

"There's so much going on in college athletics," Calhoun said. "It's very difficult to walk away from here and not be worried about the conference. So many other things are going on, more than being rejuvenated by winning a national championship, it's getting out on the floor and coaching college basketball. That would be the best answer to all the other things that are floating around. There is a wear-down effect from all those things."

So as another season was about to start, Calhoun was looking for a respite -- by getting back to work. The challenge of another season was too much to pass up.

"When I leave college basketball," Calhoun said, "it really won't be just the game you're sitting on, it will be the total journey itself. You don't want to end up as we did [in 2010], missing a layup down at Virginia Tech [in the NIT], that part I do agree with. But I enjoy coaching. If we do the best we can, the team plays the best it can. When I'm in that classroom, I feel really good about being with the kids. I'm excited to see what these kids can do."